Building Community Resilience is an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional effort to foster resilience in communities and organizations overcome by human security and homeland security challenges, such as terrorism and catastrophic disasters.

INSCT’s contributions to the discussion of community resilience address how resilient systems are defined and understood across multiple disciplines (such as social sciences, engineering, and biology) and how weaving these perspectives into a society’s “blanket of protection” affects what Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) calls the “Whole of Community” approach to resilience (one that incorporates law enforcement, public health officials, emergency management, the public at large, and more).

Background

Effective disaster management depends on policymakers’ ability to deploy law enforcement, intelligence, the military, emergency management, and public health actors. Complete coverage further requires weaving in the private sector and an active citizenry.

Research Agenda

In examining the way resilient systems are understood across multiple disciplines (such as social sciences, engineering, and biology) in a policy context, INSCT’s researchers have concluded that a community’s resilience is a function of its resource robustness and adaptive capacity, a concept that is more fully explained in “Building Resilient Communities: A Preliminary Framework for Assessment.” INSCT’s researchers continue to advance this study in order to operationalize the conceptual framework.

Developing an Analytical Framework for Assessing Community Resilience: INSCT researchers are focused on identifying the way in which resilient systems are understood across multiple disciplines (social sciences, engineering, biology) in a policy context.

Fostering Individual Resilience: In collaboration with the Campbell Institute, Maxwell School Citizenship and Public Affairs, INSCT is studying individuals’ and families’ understanding of their responsibilities in the event of a community-disrupting event.